Innovation in Sustainable Products: Cross-Cultural Analysis of Bi-national Teams

Informações

Código: GCT1714
Divisão: GCT - Gestão de Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação
Tema de Interesse: Tema 09 - Inovação e Sustentabilidade

Autores

Adriana Carla Avelino Mazza, Cleber José Cunha Dutra, Leonardo Mendes Lacerda de Menezes

Resumo

Innovation has been required as a vital asset for organizational survival in many areas,especially in the sustainability organizational field of concerns. Innovations represent animportant element for changing production and consumption patterns in the world society.Changes in Brazilian consumers consumption are perceived from the growing demand forenvironmentally-friendly products and services which are pressuring companies to achieveenvironmental efficiency to obtain eco-labels. Tools as Cleaner Production, SustainableSupply-Chain Management and Ecodesign are essential to help firms in this aim. Howeverthese tools require integration between different functions in a company, demanding thatmembers with different expertise work together as a team. Governments of nations andmanagers of companies, who are engaged in the search of solutions to a sustainable world,devise strategies to combine their diversity in skills and knowledge, aiming at superior resultsin innovation development. Based on a long tradition of collaboration Germany is a potentialpartner to work with Brazil, combining expertise in the development of innovations aimed atmore sustainable products. In today’s global environment, transnational teams should becomethe most effective teams in an organization but, because of the potential formiscommunication and conflict, the management of these teams need special attention. Suchview supports the formulation of questions, which were central to the development of thepresent paper. Cultural differences between German and Brazilian members of work teamsrepresent risks/advantages for the management process of innovation development? The paperdraws on previously reviewed studies to ground an analysis on cultural dimensions andnational characters, within Brazilian-German teams. Through this analysis it is possible tonotice that Germans and Brazilians have some cultural differences, which could lead todifficulties in managing tasks conducted by them when working together as a team. Thesedifferences can indicate a tendency to conflicting styles of management and decision-making,which will be more centralized and authoritarian to Brazilians and more participative toGermans. Strong differences between these two countries in relation to time orientation andsituations of uncertainty and ambiguity suggest that difficulties may occur in reconciling theinterests relating to deadlines and targets to be achieved by the team. As personality profilesof cultures can be operationalized as the mean trait levels of culture members and as culturesshape the expression of traits, different cultures shape different national personality traits.Probably very different national personality traits can bring problems to join individuals ofdifferent cultures. Brazil and Germany also have differences on patterns of personalityprofiles which suggest that managers need to take measures to mitigate any problems thatcould be caused by these differences. In essence, this study is an essay whose main aim is toopen perspectives for further research and to support organizations in their sustainablemanagement practices.

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